


Apocalypse

by literaturabdsm



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men Evolution
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-26 18:35:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16686763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaturabdsm/pseuds/literaturabdsm
Summary: The Apocalypse isn't a person. It’s an event. Throughout the ages. there had been many chosen ones. Creatures of power chosen to wield the necessary knowledge to strike humanity and destroy it...





	1. Chapter 1

Wolverine ran down the stairs, desperate to stop whatever was supposed to happen. Mesmero had been defeated and he laid unconscious upstairs. He knew Sabertooth would shred him apart, and destroy any chance they had to learn more about Apocalypse. At the moment, however, stopping the brute wasn’t a priority. 

Rogue was to unlock the final key to release Apocalypse. Mesmero’s defeat should have freed her from his control by now. That could be great, or terrible news. There was no telling what was down there with her. Mystique, her foster mother and an ally to Mesmero, was no more. Logan had found her frozen in stone, her hand stuck in a pillar, her face a twisted mask of silenced terror. 

The smell of decay poisoned the freezing air. Every instinct of survival was raging, prompting him to turn around and flee. The sense of dread was powerful enough to make him sweat, to turn his muscles into soft unresponsive masses. Only loyalty forced him forward; there was one of his own down there. He was gonna drag her out with him, or die at her side…

Finally, the stairs lead him to a room. Whatever had been built there laid in ruins. A narrow corridor, barely illuminated by faint fingers of light, cut the room in half. At its end stood Rogue. 

Logan leaped the last few steps. The noise of his boots slamming against the stone floor echoed in the concave walls. He ran clumsily, heart hammering, his lungs struggling to get air. A faint but very insistent thought: don’t you pee your pants. Why was he so scared? What was that horrible feeling tightening the pit of his stomach like a vice. Was the kid dead…?! Was this Apocalypse breathing down their necks...?

“Rogue?!” 

Logan felt immense relief when she blinked. She was also breathing, strong steady gasps. Tears were rolling down her pale cheeks. 

With his primary concern taken care of, Logan’s mind finally assessed the rest of the information. They were not alone. There was a man laying next to them, resting on some sort of fancy casket. He was barely more than a corpse. His eyes were bleared by death. Logan could hear his heart, weak, irregular beats. One...two...three….

A smile. Barely there, but dripping with malise...Dead eyes flashed with inhuman hatred. And then nothing. No whistling breath, no agonic heart-beats. Whoever that was, seemed the Reaper had come for him. And Logan was sure the asshole would rot in hell. If such a thing existed at all. 

“Rogue…?”

The girl was panting, staring at the dead man’s face as if he had been the most important person in her life. A child facing a mauled parent….

“Rogue...What’s the matter? What did he do…?”

As he pushed her back by the shoulders, shaking her gently in an attempt to snap her out of her trance, Logan noticed that she was holding onto the casket. No. The dead man’s hand was latched onto hers, slim bony fingers closed around pale living flesh. A hideous spider attempting to choke the life out of its prey. In an impulse, Logan unsheathed his claws and cut Rogue loose. 

“Come on...let’s get outta here…” He coaxed, gently leading the girl to the stairs. 

“Ah...Ah’ve seen….Logan….Ah’ve seen war….Every war...Every dying…”

Logan said nothing, hugging her close to him as he rushed them forward. He wasn’t good with this sort of thing. If that old shit had messed with the kid’s head, only Xavier could be of use right now. And if her soul was hurting, Ororo and Jean were best suited to apply “first aid care”. For now, all he could do was get them out of there safely. 

Rogue’s legs gave out under her. Logan had sensed it happening. Without even stopping, he scooped her up in his arms and ran faster towards the stairs. There was no reason to fight his instincts anymore. All of him wanted nothing but to leave that horrid place behind and never think about it again. Rogue’s heart-wrenching sobs spurred him on.


	2. Brooding

Rogue laid on her bed, staring at the ceiling. Everyone was hysterical, trying to understand what the hell had happened. Mesmero was prodded mercilessly by both the Professor and another telepath who was working for Magneto- an ugly muck called Mindblender, or something like that. He was telling the truth and hiding nothing: whatever was meant to happen, it had happened. 

Mesmero had nothing more to give, and if Mystique knew something more, she couldn’t tell. Apparently, her body was solid stone now. They would try to discover what had caused this...but for now, the priority was to understand what Apocalypse had done. And much to Rogue’s annoyance, the key to that understanding was her.

She regretted talking to Logan during those confusing minutes after….it happened. Just a few words that had slipped from trembling lips. The mind too broken to process the meaning of what it had been fed with. They wouldn’t stop asking about it. She said there was nothing more to say. 

Rogue wasn’t lying. What she told Logan was indeed all Apocalypse did. It showed her the true nature of the human mind; it showed her the wars that had already shaken humanity, and those yet to come. It wasn’t a precognition, or so it said. It was just a guess based on observable facts and evidence. Humans couldn’t change their core nature. It wasn’t a popular idea, but they were, indeed, merely chimpanzees with the power of speech. And like chimps, they were slaves to their genetics, and their genetics were greedy and violent…

She should tell them how she felt about this, that did make sense. And perhaps, her guilt came from accepting that this was important information she was neglecting to share. But it felt...unsafe. Evidently, she was the key to Apocalypse’s plan. How would the others react if she told them that he had messed with her head? The immediate question was: how much of her thoughts where her own right now? Was she possessed? Had he altered her perceptions- like Mesmero would- but in a more subtle way? 

Professor Xavier could clarify all of those questions...if it suited him. If it served his own agenda. Because that’s what everyone did. There were goals to achieve, people needed to be herded in the right directions. And if they refused, they were to be leashed, controlled and neutralized. 

It hurt to think of the Professor in that way; to suspect that all of her friends were potential enemies. But it was a thought she recognized as her own. Many of these nasty truths that had asserted themselves into her mind had always been there. But when before they had been merely whispers, suggestions to explain the sorrow and anger she felt, to give meaning to the abandonment and persecution, now they asserted themselves as undeniable truths. 

Apocalypse had not injected alien thoughts into her; he had simply provided evidence to solidify her suspicions. Confusion was replaced by stark clarity. An understanding untainted by ignorance and naivety.

Rogue’s eyes widened slightly. Man, she was starting to sound like Magneto. No big surprise there. Magneto did make sense; their disagreement was on his methods. As Professor Xavier said: the moment you become what you fight against, the battle is lost.

But was that a valid strategy outside of the controlled reality of books? Would evil people lose a war against a pacifist that refused to strike as ruthlessly as them? Did compassion ever win a war…? 

Magneto was a violent man, consumed by hatred and ruled by cynicism. He had tried to enforce his views, but the Professor continuously won their battles. It wasn’t a matter of restraint and who was right...it was about power. Magneto-and his goons- were simply not strong enough.   
But she was. 

Oh, this she knew was wrong. Of this, there were no half truths hiding by uncertainty. Rogue didn’t want to share the fact that Apocalypse had taught her how to use her powers properly. The powers of all she had absorbed under Mesmero’s control were now as much hers as her own deadly skin. All of it without the inconvenience of alien thoughts and feelings fighting against her. As of now, she was an army of one…

An army of mutants with Magneto’s views…..

Rogue snorted, a nasty smirk twisting her lips. Was this Apocalypse’s game? To make her hate humanity? Give her the reasons to justify herself, and the power to attack with deadly an unstoppable violence….

“Pity Ah ain’t into getting used.” 

There was a soft knock on the door. She knew who it was: she could smell him, she could hear his thoughts, feel the concern...For a moment, she thought of porting out of the room, or phasing through the floor and into the room below. Risky maneuvers that could reveal her little secret. Logan would identify the stench of Kurt’s teleportation smoke, and the library downstairs wasn’t empty. As obtuse as Berzerker was, he would acknowledge the oddity of her dropping off the roof to land next to him. 

The door opened and Logan stepped inside. Rogue gave him a leveled stare.

“It ain’t nice to enter a girl’s room uninvited, ya know.” 

“It ain’t nice not to answer when someone knocks on yer door.”

“Take a hint, Logan.”

Logan gritted his teeth. Kids with an attitude were hard for him to tolerate, but...he could do an exception with this one. He had to. As young as she was, life was having no mercy. So, figures he should treat her as old as the kid probably felt. 

“We-ah- whatever was protecting Mesmero against Charles...it's gone. So he won’t be able to mess with us anymore…”

“...and Mystique?”

Logan paused for a moment. Mystique had done a lot to hurt Rogue, and in ways that truly scarred the soul. But she was still the kid’s mother...

“You don’t have to worry about that anymore, Rogue.” He said, speaking as gently as he could. “She’s gone. We tried everything to help her….but she’s just solid stone now.” 

Rogue blinked.The news were somewhat reassuring. Mystique was a very dangerous presence in her life and it was gone now. It was also saddening. Of all the personas Apocalypse had fused into her, Mystique had been the most painful to assimilated. Underneath the thick layers of rotten hatred and piercing malise, there had been love. Love for her, love for Kurt. And so many regrets and fears... 

*Rogue...?"

"Ah'm fahne, Logan."


End file.
